Malmaison Hotels
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Malmaison Oxford
We have just returned from the Malmaison in Oxford following a two night stay. The hotel (a converted prison where the rooms are the cells) is a very funky place to stay. The location is excellent and the staff are all very helpful and friendly but (and it's a BIG BUT) there were just too many other things wrong to give it a decent rating. Our room (and bathroom) were very cold (it was not a 'cell' room, for reasons that will become apparent shortly) and despite asking on two occasions for something to be done about it, it remained cold. On both nights we were woken up by the astonishingly loud automated emergency warning system in the room which boomed out: "ATTENTION, ATTENTION. AN INCIDENT HAS BEEN REPORTED - PLEASE STAND BY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS" As you might imagine, not only did this do it's job wonderfully (it would have woken a dead person!) but it put the fear of god into us. We sat bolt upright in bed, waiting for the gunfire/explosion/fire with our hearts banging and wondered what the hell to do. We had just decided to dress and evacuate the hotel when the warning system once again boomed out: "ATTENTION, ATTENTION. ALL CLEAR, ALL CLEAR". As if this wasn't a sufficiently traumatic experience the whole thing was repeated again 15 minutes later! Adrenaline saw to it that the remainder of the nights sleep was anything but restful! The following night (Saturday) we had a repeat performance "ATTENTION, ATTENTION....." I'm sure you get the idea of just how horrid it was by now. The 'reason' was do with an incident caused by a very large party which had booked out pretty well every room in the hotel (the reason why we didn't have a 'cell' room). Not only would it have been nice to know this at the time of booking (we would have found another hotel) it also meant that all of the seating in the bar and other areas throughout the hotel was 'booked out' to the private party. The following night there was wedding party booked in and once again the same facilities were 'booked out' for the use of the private party (and once again a private party was responsible for triggering the emergency warning system). The cost of the room for two nights was around £600.00 - a price which we thought included breakfast but in fact this was an additional £70.00 for the two of us). We also booked the hotel car parking (an additional £27.50 per night), which turned out to be valid only until 12 noon on the Sunday when the car had to be removed, whereas the commercial car park just across from the hotel was £25.00 for 24 hours. We complained (politely) on checking out and were offered a voucher to stay at another Malmaison. When we said how unlikely this would be and how disappointed we were with the whole experience, our bill (which was £725.00) was eventually discounted by £100.00. So: £625.00 for a cold, unremarkable room, with two nights of waking-up in abject terror thrown in, and with no access to the hotel's most iconic spaces. Honestly, two nights in the cells at the local nick might have been more preferable - we will not be going back. Peter